Yes, yes, yes, God deemed the timing right for us to have baby #2! We had been trying for a good many months, content with our life and trusting Him with the future and right before John left for a Colorado hunting trip, the pregnancy test read ‘positive.’ We’re excited and thankful and humbled and praying a lot and wondering what the adventurous step from 1 to 2 will be like. And two girls! I’m already praying their relationship and friendship as sisters becomes strong and sweet and fun.

I have to confess though, first trimester sickness with a toddler? Wowzers. I was the same kind of sick with Anna in the early months but it felt so. much. more. with parenting Anna at the same time. I reminded myself DAILY that it was because my body was doing what it was supposed to do to grow a healthy baby, but good gravies. As I’ve said to many friends, ‘not for the faint of heart.’ And I confess, many days I was the faint of heart. Foggy, fatigued, grumbling inside and out. Some hours weren’t the prettiest. (All of that to say, moms of multiples, I now have new and mad respect and admiration for you.)

Thankfully, most days I found a great deal of comfort and peace knowing God’s love for me never wavered based on my lack of Bible study or lengthy prayer or dishes being done or increased amount of ‘doing nothing’ during Anna’s naps. But there were also many days shame crept in, feeling unlike myself, feeling ‘less than enough’ for the hours in front of me. Days where the age-old lie of ‘you are what you do’ took most of my mental capacity to battle. I’m grateful God’s presence isn’t bound to any particular, exact way of spending our time, because some days the only ‘spiritual’ thing I was doing was sharing quite honestly with Him about how I felt and asking for extra grace. And, I let my friends be strong for me. I let them help. I let them pursue me. And they were gifts of Love.

Hallelujah that God’s love and friendship with us transcends weeks, months and years when we are uncomfortable, in pain, wishing things were easier or waiting for the next season. Right?

He reminds me, and most days I am slow to accept it, that my continual inviting Him into the places where I most want to hide, moments I want to escape into Netflix or shopping to distract myself from how sick I feel, can be enough for this (temporary) season.

I could still tend my relationship with Him simply by expressing my need of Him, by trusting Him to be the loving, present God He is, in the ordinary minutes, even if I wasn’t doing an hour of Bible study or being super energetic with my toddler or policing my screen time or staying on top of all my home tasks. Abiding doesn’t stop when I’m not doing Christian-y things.

Maybe you could use this encouragement also: No matter how the day is going, your productivity, how you feel about yourself, your stress level, “trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God’s love even when you do not feel it… keep saying, God loves me, and God’s love is enough. You have to choose the solid place over and over again an return to it after every failure.” (Henri Nouwen)

He is God and you are His… on Sundays where you spend half the day in church and on a Tuesday when you struggle to pray.